


Trust Fall

by Sholio



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-05-31 12:04:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15119015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Yondu doesn't just pick up Peter; he gets one spitting-mad, terminally ill Terran female as well.





	Trust Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maidenjedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/gifts).



There were any number of things Yondu knew he _should_ have done when the screaming, furious Terran female came out of nowhere, looking like she'd just peeled herself out of a medbed (which he later found out was absolutely true) and threw herself on top of the kid he was attempting to repossess for Ego the Asshole. Shot her, for example ... but you didn't exactly get a cooperative kid by shooting his mom in front of him. Besides, Yondu was an absolute shit and he knew it, but he wasn't _that_ much of a shit. At least not if there wasn't money in it.

Also, he figured, a kid with a (mostly) functional and (somewhat) alive parent on board would be a lot quieter and easier to control.

And then the female crumpled in a heap and the kid started screaming. Thing #2 he should've done was just let her die. But that was before a small fist clamped onto his long leather coat, and the kid stared up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes and babbled wildly in Terran, and next thing Yondu knew, they were expending valuable med supplies trying to keep her alive. He was already running the Asgardian blockade to grab this kid from Terra, which was bad enough, but add a medical crisis on top of it, and this damn trip was going to end up _costing_ him money. 

He was having a much-needed drink in his quarters when a tap at the door announced the arrival of Kinar, the ship's medic. "Talk to you, boss? Private-like?"

Yondu waved him in and poured another glass. Kinar slithered in and picked it up delicately in one of his ten grasping tentacles. He was a Hfarian, a land-dwelling cephalopod. Alcohol didn't really get them drunk but it didn't hurt them either.

"Terran woman still alive?"

"Yessss ..." Kinar's tentacles writhed idly in indecision or dismay. "The medbots managed to extract the tumor that was making her ill. Terran biology looks similar to Xandarian, and cancer in Xandarians is --"

"Some reason you're takin' up my time with this medical blather, Kinar?" Yondu pursed his lips; the arrow quivered in its holster.

"It's a very strange tumor," Kinar said hastily. "If cancer in Terrans is like cancer in Xandarians, it shouldn't look anything like it does. According to the boy -- we got a translator in him, by the way -- his mom went from being perfectly healthy to getting as bad as she was when we picked her up in a matter of weeks. Which isn't the strange part; cancer can do that. What's peculiar is that it seems to have done it with absolutely no sign of metastasizing or abnormalities elsewhere in her body. Advanced as it is, it shouldn't have been doing that. It's like the tumor just appeared, as if by magic."

"Still not seein' why you're botherin' me with this," Yondu said sharply, while unease crawled in his belly.

Kinar shrugged with an all-over ripple of tentacles. "You're the cap'n. Figured you'd want to know."

The Hfarian slithered out after letting him know that child and mother were currently locked in the medbay under guard. Yondu poured himself another drink and went to gaze moodily out at the stars.

Like the tumor just appeared. Rot it.

He'd _known_ Ego was killing those kids' moms. Known it for the last few jobs, really. It was just too goddamn convenient that every single one of that bastard's by-blows on dozens of planets happened to be an orphan. Every time he showed up to find another of Ego's kids living with relatives or on the street, that fact itched at the back of his mind, just like it did every time he dropped off a kid and saw no sign of the other kids he'd brought before.

Itch, itch, itch ...

And now here was another one, except the timing was wrong. Maybe Ego screwed up, maybe Yondu got through the blockade faster than he should have ... who cared. A few days later and he'd have showed up after the mom had died, picked up another grieving orphan and went to reunite him with Daddy Dearest.

Or whatever was happening to those kids.

He let out a long, slow breath.

_You know what's happenin' to those kids. Wasn't born yesterday._

No. Just acted like it sometimes.

He thought of the Terran woman screaming and clawing at Yondu's men as they tried to separate her from her son. Idly he rubbed at the back of his hand where she'd managed to score him with her nails. He'd heard people could be that way about their kids, sometimes.

Not Ego, of course. Oh, it was a heartwarming story, all those children reunited with their loving pa. But Yondu tried to picture Ego throwing himself over any one of those kids the way the Terran woman had done. Couldn't imagine it.

They could take the woman and her spawn back to Terra and drop them off. But that would mean running the blockade the other way ... and there was nothing to stop Ego from sending someone else to pick them up. Maybe kill her proper-like, next time.

Could just push 'em out an airlock. Probably should. Take care of the problem once and for all.

Yondu scraped at his teeth pensively with a thumbnail. There just weren't many good options here. Weren't many options at all.

 

***

 

When they let Meredith out of this prison of a sickbay, the first thing she was going to do was find that greasy blue scumbag who ran this ship and give him whatfor for letting her son _watch_ them operate on her. What kind of person did that to an eight-year-old? Even now, she could see how Peter kept trying not to look up at the equipment over the bed, which was just _dangling there_ , like someone had taken a big ball of surgeon's tools and electronics, rolled it all together, and stuck it to the ceiling.

Also, this place did not look sanitary. At all. Meredith steadfastly tried not to think about infection, the grubby state of the sheet covering her legs, and the fact that she'd been wearing her hospital gown for three days. These people had a spaceship; they _must_ understand about germs.

"Do you want to eat some more, Mom?" Peter asked anxiously.

"Not right now, baby." She pushed the bowl toward him. "I'm full. Couldn't eat another bite. Would you like the rest of mine?"

At least they were being fed. The food seemed okay; at the very least, it hadn't made them sick. She even had an appetite for it, for what felt like the first time in ages, though her stomach still couldn't handle very much at a time.

And she was glad to see Peter dig into the soup with a healthy appetite. At least he was handling this okay. 

Whatever _this_ was.

_Okay, so I knew there were aliens in this big wide galaxy. Stands to reason his daddy isn't the only one._

And they'd helped her, even if it had been terrifying and her head still throbbed. But it was a different kind of ache now. She reached up to finger the healing scars stitched along her bare scalp, then jerked her fingers away when she noticed Peter watching.

"Does your head hurt, Mom?"

"A little, baby. But not like before. It feels a lot better."

"They fixed you," Peter said, his eyes shining with wonder.

She gave him back a smile. "I think they did."

"Are they friends of Dad's? Are they going to take us to him?"

"I don't know, sweetie. Maybe they will if we ask real nice."

"I'll be very nice, Mom."

He was such a good kid. She ruffled his hair. "I know you will."

"You really are feeling better," Peter said, grinning.

"I am. In fact, I'm thinking I feel so much better I might go for a walk." She knew that she needed to build her strength back up, whether she felt like getting up or not.

"On the ship?" Peter asked, his spoon clattering into the empty bowl. He had been dealing with their captivity with as much patience as an active eight-year-old could have, but she knew he'd been struggling with impatience at being held captive on a real, actual spaceship that he wasn't allowed to explore.

"No, sorry, baby. I'm just going to walk around the room and stretch my legs a bit."

She pushed back the dirty sheet and swung her legs over the side of the bed -- and of course that was when the door slid open and Mr. Blue Space Jerk came sauntering in, his long coat swishing around him.

Meredith grabbed the tail of the sheet and pulled it over her lap. "You ever heard of knocking, mister?"

Blue and Filthy folded his arms and gazed down at her from cold red eyes. "It's my ship. I go where I want."

The thing they'd injected into her throat gave a slight twinge. It was getting better, healing up like the rest of her. She could understand everything they said now, as opposed to just a word here and there when they'd first stuck it in her neck.

"You told them to fix my mom, and now she's better," Peter declared. Before Meredith could grab him, he darted over and threw his arms around the pirate captain's leg.

For an instant, she got to see the big mean space pirate taken completely off guard. He looked utterly floored. Then he jerked away and gave Peter a hard shove that sent the child's feet sliding across the floor.

Meredith slid off the bed, gripping it for support. "Don't you _dare_ touch my child! I don't care if you own this ship, Mr. High and Mighty. Peter, come to Mama, baby."

Peter looked slightly confused when Meredith grabbed him and hauled him back with her. "Did he hurt you?" she asked, patting him down.

"No, Mom. I'm okay." He tried to deflect her from patting his head all over. "Mom, stop. I'm fine!"

"You'd better be." Dizziness caught up with her, and she leaned against the bed with an arm around her son and looked up at the pirate captain. He'd watched the whole thing with a look that was closed off and yet ... strange. Yearning, almost. The shutters slammed down behind his eyes as soon as he noticed she was looking at him.

"Don't get me wrong, mister," she told him. "I'm real glad for what you did for me. But that doesn't give you the right to lay a hand on my boy when he was just trying to say thank you. You understand me?"

Blue and Ugly smiled slightly, showing a flash of serrated teeth. "You don't make the rules here, woman. You don't tell me what to do. Everything on this ship belongs to me, and that includes you and the boy there."

Meredith's arm tightened around Peter. "Oh no, he doesn't."

"Oh yes, he does." The pirate tapped his temple with a thick, grubby finger. "How's the ol' skull feeling? Better?"

"Hurts," Meredith said succinctly.

He snorted something like a laugh. "I'm told you're gonna be fine. Which means you _owe_ us. You and that precious kid of yours. You're gonna work it off."

Meredith's mouth dropped open. "Wait. What?"

"Work. You'll work for us until you pay off your debt. Got it? Or did Kinar cut out a little too much of that squishy Terran brain?"

Meredith's mouth opened and closed. Finally she got out, "You're not taking us back to Earth?"

"Not 'til you pay us off, no."

"I -- I demand you take us to Peter's father."

The pirate stepped forward until he was close enough she could smell him. He didn't smell _bad_ , exactly -- it was a smell of leather and grease and hot metal, with a slight hint of not quite enough bathing underneath.

"Woman," he said, his voice a low rasp. "You don't make demands. You don't give orders. You live as long as I tell the crew you _get_ to live. That boy too. We got uses for him, little skinny kid like that."

Meredith hugged Peter to herself so tightly he squeaked. "You're not getting my boy. You're not _touching_ my boy. I don't care what you do to me."

"I don't even want him. Didn't want either one of you, but here you are. So you'll work off your debt. Scrubbing floors, maybe. How does that sound to you?"

"I want to be taken home," Meredith said, her voice shaking.

"Sorry, sister. No can do." He started to say something else, but was interrupted by the smack of a small fist on his leather coat.

"Don't be mean to my mom," Peter declared. "I don't care if you helped fix her. You're mean."

"Peter," she gasped, wrapping both arms around him. "Peter, don't."

The pirate looked down at the child for a long, quiet moment. "Tough kid. Like your momma, you are."

He pursed his lips and gave a shrill whistle. There was a flare of red light, and the arrow in a holster by his side -- which Meredith, up to that point, hadn't even noticed -- zipped out and hovered in front of the two of them.

Meredith couldn't move. The smell of hot metal was sharper now, enough to make her eyes water. 

With a grim smile, the pirate whistled again. The arrow dropped neatly back into its holster, and he turned in a swish of the long coat. Over his shoulder, he said, "Tailor'll be by in a little while, fit you for something to wear other than that rag."

"Hey!" Meredith called after him, her voice cracking in a dry throat. "Hey, what am I supposed to call you? Don't you have a name?"

A grim, sideways half-smile. "You can call me Cap'n, is what you can call me."

The door slid shut behind him.

"Peter, baby." Meredith took him by the shoulders and turned him around to face her. "Don't ever do that. That man is very dangerous, do you understand? You just stay away from him. Stay with me."

Peter nodded. She hugged him tightly, pressing his face into her shoulder.

"That arrow thing was pretty cool, though, wasn't it, Mom?"

"Maybe a little bit," Meredith had to concede. "But you don't talk to that man, okay? You let me talk to him."

Peter nodded against her shoulder.

She was going to get out of this, she thought. Her head felt better by the day. She was going to get off this filthy, terrible ship of kidnappers (who had fixed her brain cancer, she still didn't know how to feel about that), and she was going to somehow get to Peter's daddy, and everything would be okay.

**~The Beginning~**


End file.
